From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia

An animalier is an artist, mainly from the 19th century, who specializes in, or is known for, their skill in the realistic portrayal of animals; animal painter is the more general term for earlier artists. Although the work may be in any genre or format, the term is most often applied to sculptors and painters.

Animalier as a collective plural noun, or animalier bronzes, is also a term in antiques for small-scale sculptures of animals, of which large numbers were produced, often mass-produced, in 19th century France and elsewhere.

Although many earlier examples can be found, animalier sculpture became more popular, and reputable, in early 19th century Paris with the works of Antoine-Louis Barye (1795–1875) for whom the term was coined, decisively, by critics in 1831. By the mid-century, a taste for animal subjects was very widespread among all sections of the middle-classes.